Here’s How You Can Become An Authority In Your Industry (Part 2)

If you approach the writing process the right way, your book can become your most powerful tool for building authentic authority and scaling your business.

Becoming an authority in your industry will help you win clients, raise fees, and scale your business. But, as we explored in the first part of this article, your authority won’t mean anything if it’s manufactured. Only authentic authority will generate sustainable growth. And writing a book is perhaps the most powerful way to amplify that authentic authority.

Writing A Book Helps You Define Your Expertise

Writing a book can’t turn a novice into an expert, but it can turn an expert into an authority.

By the time you start writing a book, you should already have developed professional expertise. You should already have built a successful business or completed a triumphant first career.

The writing process, then, becomes an opportunity to identify what you learned while you developed that expertise.

This is why I love coaching new authors. I love helping somebody who has extraordinary experience and knowledge discover new things about who they are, what they believe, and what they truly stand for.

In my experience, I have found that the people who have the best information, who have the most unique value to offer, usually don’t realize it. Their insights and abilities are so much a part of who they are and how they see the world that they mistake the innovative for the obvious.

The best strategic book development and writing coaches will question your every assumption and help you distinguish the self-evident from the ingenious, so that you can bring your best insights to the forefront.

Writing A Book Helps You Deepen Your Expertise

While the majority of your writing should articulate what you’ve learned from experience, you may find that as much as twenty to thirty percent of your book discloses new research and insights that emerge duringthe writing process.

If you’re only writing about what you already know, you’re missing a huge opportunity to deepen your understanding of your own work and communicate the value of that understanding. That’s why I direct my clients to search for third-party verification as well as opposing views. Test your opinions to make sure they’re actually true. Know what other experts in your field are saying and where you disagree. Be bold. If you disagree, call it out. Make your case for why.

This research helps you contextualize your contributions to your industry and it also gives you the opportunity to learn more. As you get to know your industry better, your services will become more valuable — and so will your book. You’ll also become a more informative speaker and panelist. That’s why conference organizers love to book authors, authors who know their stuff.

You Can’t Rush Genius

The best authors use the writing process as an opportunity to investigate their own expertise and learn more about their fields. That’s why it’s so important not to rush the work. If you try to write your book in a weekend or go from idea to publication in ninety days, you’ll miss out on the incredible opportunity to learn from the writing process.

As much as your book can be a tool for driving sales and developing products, what it is more similar to than anything else is a diploma — evidence that you went through the transformative process of writing a book, that you have evolved from an owner into an author, and that you have grown from an expert into an authority.

So take your time. Write the best book that you can write. It will enhance your authority and stand the test of time.

If you’d like to learn more about how to write a book to grow your business, check out From Owner To Author, a Facebook community for coaches, consultants, and business owners with authorial ambitions. You can click here to join the conversation.